LIVE: All Time Low – Ulster Hall, Belfast

The Ulster Hall has hosted a lot of concerts throughout the years from the likes of Rory Gallagher to Led Zeppelin and also as part of the MTV Music Awards had the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. It is a fantastic venue enriched in history for music and in my opinion one of the best concert venues I have been to, to see a live act.

The night started with a band called Only Rivals from Dublin. They came on stage and with great crowd interaction and a good solid stage presence warmed the crowd up perfectly for All Time Low to continue the night. Now if some of you don’t know, All Time Low are a pop punk band that come from America. They have played Belfast only twice before, playing the Ulster Hall back in 2012.

Tonight however All Time Low really impressed me as when they came out on stage they never stopped performing right to the very end. They opened with ‘Do You Want Me (Dead)’ off the album Dirty Work which set the pace of a high octane rock show, but in between songs they were also joking about with the crowd before they broke into other songs including ‘Damned if You Do (Damned if You Don’t)‘, ‘Dear Maria’, ‘Count Me In’, ‘Guts’, ‘Lost in Stereo’ and countless others.

It was quite a long setlist, but as they powered through it making sure that the audience was by their side all the way they started to play covers of Green Day such as American Idiot and Good Riddance (Time of your Life). They also had a few people up on stage with them from the audience to dance and sing. The music was all fantastic but that wasn’t just the whole show. They also had an exceptional light show which went on throughout the concert and gave the place the feel of a munch bigger venue.

To sum up the entire night it was just one big punk rock party where the bands made the crowd a part of the show for the evening and incorporated them in every little detail of their performances. Matt Halliday, GiggingNI.com